Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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This week in 1973 saw no change at the peak of the UK singles chart. That slot was still in the cast-iron grip of Get Down by Gilbert O'Sullivan.
However, on the album chart which ran parallel to it, an LP called Houses of The Holy by Led Zeppelin smashed straight in at Number One.
I must confess to never having heard that album but tracks I approved of on that week's singles chart were:
Cum On Feel the Noize - Slade
Giving It All Away - Roger Daltrey
Brother Louie - Hot Chocolate
and
Blockbuster - the Sweet.
Should you wish to peruse the matter further, the singles chart in question can be found right here.
While the album chart resides herewithin.
What's this? A Mighty World of Marvel cover that's not drawn by Jim Starlin?
We'd best get used to it because Jim won't produce another cover for the book until August.
Instead, we get the first of a string of frontages by Dick Ayers who - just like Jim - doesn't bless Marvel UK with what you could call his greatest work.
Meanwhile, unless I miss my guess, the man without fear's up against the man without a bull, as he must tackle the Matador. The Matador's armed with the awesome weapon that is a cape. How can DD ever hope to defeat him?
And, finally, as Cyril Fletcher used to say; the Puppet Master decides it's time to gain revenge upon the Fantastic Four. And, this time, for his pawn, he'll use the Sub-Mariner!
Not content with giving us this week's Mighty World of Marvel cover, Dazzling Dick Ayers also creates one for this book, as well.
Meanwhile, Thor must figure out how to defeat the awesome might of Sandu, a carnival mystic boosted by the power of Loki!
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26 comments:
Oh, that issue of SMCW.
I've seen on a rival blog that someone at Marvel U.K. went through and made changes to some of the panels from ASM Annual #1 that involved cameos from superheroes that hadn't yet appeared in Marvel U.K.:
- Giant Man replaced by Mr Fantastic and Invisible Woman
- Doctor Strange replaced by a the Thing
- two one panel video calls with the FF and Avengers replaced by a two-panel FF call
- Iron Man replaced by a security guard
- an X-Man panel just left out
Needless to say, I don't approve. I'm guessing the Thor cameo must have survived the cut though.
Will be interesting to see what happens to Mysterio's X-Men robots in next week's issue. Will they just change the script to make them robots with random superpowers rather than robot X-Men?
And I'm also wondering whether the reason DD is appearing in MWOM is because he popped up last week as a guest in the Spider-Man strip. And whether MWOM will reprint the Thing vs Hulk two parter featuring The Avengers in a couple of months' time.
Steve, I second your endorsement of ‘Brother Louie’ and ‘Blockbuster’. I can’t really endorse ‘Cum On Feel The Noize’ because I’m just not familiar with the Slade version. I though Quiet Riot’s cover was okay, so I should probably YouTube the original track one of these days.
I think ‘Houses of the Holy’ is a pretty solid Zeppelin album. Everyone I know mis-pronounces the title of their Top 20 hit ‘D’Yer Mak’er’. Everyone says ‘Die-er Maker’ instead of ‘Jer Maker’. When I first heard that it was supposed to be a pun - slash - double entendre, I was so confused.
Those two covers may not be Dick Ayer’s’ ‘best work’, but they’re both far from his worst — in fact, I’d say they’re better than his average.
b.t.
Looking at that albums chart, it seems that after a week in at number two 'Dark Side of the Moon' is on the way down and out of the top five, Steve - now there's a record with no staying power, eh?
Not a lot of great records this week, although I will confess to owning an old copy of the 'Birds of Fire' lp by Mahavishnu Orchestra. It has its moments.
Away from the mainstream music biz, I believe this was the week of the last all-nighter at the Golden Torch in Stoke, which closed after the council - on 'advice' from the local constabulary - took away its alcohol licence. Boooo!
On the plus side though, that left a space for a 'Northern Soul' (although I don't think it was called that quite yet) venue that would be filled later in the year by the Wigan Casino, which became the greatest nightclub in the world according to Variety. Better than Studio 54 apparently... and they never even had a bar!
-sean
I wonder why Marvel didn't use the original US covers at all for the British reprints early on.
Possibly they might have considered them too old fashioned to attract attention in the early 70s... But then why not put at least some effort into doing better ones that looked a bit more up to date?
-sean
bt, D'Yer Mak'Er means "Did you make her?" but also sounds like "Jamaica".
You've obviously never heard this tired old British joke:
My wife's going to the Caribbean next week.
Jamaica?
No, she wanted to go.
There was a funnier version on BBC Radio 4's THE NOW SHOW a few years ago:
My wife's going to the Caribbean next week.
Jamaica?
YES!
There’s an elephant in the room with that Led Zep track - it’s built around a lumpen attempt at a sort of reggae rhythm. Hence the punning title.
Zep we’re obviously fans of music of Black origin (they ripped off the blues as much as any 60s Brit band) which seemed to extend to then-current funk trends which they had a stab at with ‘The Crunge’ on this album as well.
To my ears it doesn’t go well on either track. Bonham was an amazing drummer for pummelling wall of sound type stuff. The subtitles of funk and reggae syncopation seem to elude him though.
I’m with Lyndon as regards Pink Floyd. But I can’t deny the icy, terrifying brilliance of the lyrics of ‘Time’ on DSotM. Just amazing.
*Lydon
Colin: oh, I know all that NOW :) — I didn’t know it way back when. See…
A): “D’yer” doesn’t quite translate to anything in Amurrican. Over here, slurry slang for “you” is “ya” (as in Jeff Lynne’s “Do Ya”) or “yuh” if you’re a hillbilly or low-level gangster in a comic book. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “Did ya” contracted to “D’ya”. I’ve seen it spelled out as “Didja”, which if you say it really fast sounds kinda like “D’juh”. So that’s the first syllable of the “Jamaica” pun taken care of. But…
B): there isn’t really anything in the lyrics of “D’yer Ma’ker” that play on “Jamaica” (except I guess the song kinda has a reggae feel to it?) and…
C): all the corny old “Jamaica? / No, she wanted to go” type jokes weren’t a thing here in the US of A. Thus, confusion and mis-pronunciation.
b.t.
John Lydon might have worn an 'I hate Pink Floyd' t-shirt once or twice in the late '70s, but he was obviously a bit of a fan. 'Albatross', from PIL's Metal Box album, was a response to 'Echoes' - who would do that if they weren't interested in the first place?
Not knocking him for that, as I get the idea of artists 'killing their idols' - much more so than being pro-Trump just to annoy liberals - but I don't believe a word of it.
And to be fair to Pink Floyd, at least they never entered Eurovision.
-sean
Re: Lydon Vs Floyd — it was a fairly common posture for newly minted punks to loudly hate on Prog bands (and ‘Arena Rock’ bands like Led Zeppelin too). Vilifying The Old often goes hand in hand with Embracing The New. Henry Rollins talks about his own discovery of Punk Rock as an almost Religious Experience, and how he threw away all his Deep Purple, Aerosmith and Steve Miller albums while in the early grip of his ‘conversion’ (and then years later feeling kinda foolish for doing so).
b.t.
Not sure that was quite the case with Lydon, b.t. To be fair, even when he was in the Sex Pistols it wasn't that uncommon for him to go on about 'old stuff' in interviews. Famously he went on Capital Radio in 1977, and played records by people like Captain Beefeart, Can, the Third Ear Band, and even Neil Young.
What a &#@√ing hippie.
-sean
b.t.-
Rollins didn't throw away Toys in the Attic, did he?!
I've always liked Henry, but that would be...that would just be wrong...
I was never into his music. I guess I qualify as an old classic rock fart, but the guy is hilarious. He does an amazing Iggy Pop impersonation. It's on You Tube, and I defy you not to laugh if you hear it. "(sotto voice) Hi, there, I'm Jim."
For his own part, Iggy described meeting Rollins as being like that scene in Robocop where the titular character meets the new, bigger more lethal version.
I only hope they stuck to decaf coffee when they were hanging out. Sheesh.
M.P.
Nobody would dare make an album cover like Houses Of The Holy nowadays with naked children on it.
Was that when Rollins and Iggy Pop were on the same William Shatner record, M.P.? Hard to imagine either model Robocop doing that...
But you're right, Rollins is pretty funny. His spoken word act is a lot better than his or Black Flag's music.
-sean
Rollins teamed up with Iggy on one track of American Ceasar, and I think Rollins opened for him at a live show or two.
Are you referring to Wild Bill Shatner's epic spoken record "Has Been" Sean? I don't think Iggy, (or, ah, Jim) was on that. Rollins was.
Either way, it's a great record.
It was hard to top "The Transformed Man" and it took decades, millions of dollars and probably cost countless human psyches, but Wild Bill did it, and cemented his place in posterity.
M.P.
No M.P., I meant 'Shatner Claus', his album of Christmas songs. Seriously.
-sean
Sean-
Jesus! I had no idea such a record existed! But I looked it up and apparently it does.
Never in my most fevered imaginings could such a thing happen...
M.P.
dangermash doesn’t have Shatner Claus but does have two Shatner albums: Seeking Major Tom and The Blues. Both through choice, not Secret Santa. Bohemian Rhapsody, Spirit In The Sky, Let's Work Together and I Put A Spell On You are top top tracks. All of them are on YouTube.
Obviously I have Houses Of The Holy too - no brainier, that one.
I've been listening to some of the 'Shatner Claus' songs on YouTube and they are much better than I expected - I've certainly heard far worse festive offerings over the years. Now I fancy a mince pie.
Is that a new thing for you dangermash, writing about yourself in the third person? Or have I just not noticed before? (Some commenters here have been known to do it quite prominently)
New vinyl editions of 'Houses of the Holy' have a horizontal paper band around them - a bit like a Japanese obi - covering up part of the child in the foreground.
Strange that it seems to be controversial these days. I mean, public morality changes and I can see how it might be considered questionable photographing kids like.. but it was done decades ago, so it's a bit pointless doing anything about it now. The actual cover itself doesn't seem particularly pervy to me.
The 'music' is more objectionable.
Ok, I'll get my coat...
-sean
*photographing kids like that...
Apologies for the typo
-sean
Oh, I think I've written about myself in the Charlie person occasionally, Sean.
And I agree with you about the HoTH not being pervy. Anyone wanting that album cover banned would be well advised to stay away from the Sistine Chapel or the Uffuzi Gallery.
Gents-Charlie would prefer you not talk about HotH’s cover. Here in amerika / americuh the violent minority are going bat sh!t crazy banning things. Actually, now that Charlie thinks about maybe he will plant the seed. All the amerikuns who grew up with it and are now part of that minority might reflect that the album cover did not damage them? Or… perhaps they will indeed blame amerikuh’s ills on Led Zepp!
Well, it seems theres often a double standard around that kind of thing, Charlie - like when there was a controversy about all that dreadfully violent gangsta rap... even though Johnny Cash had been singing about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die for years.
So far as the HOTH cover goes, the actual kids in the picture must be in their late 50s by now... have any of them complained in the years since? That would be the only reason I could see to object to it, if any of them had come out with some story about ill-treatment on the actual photo shoot or whatever, and called for the cover to be withdrawn.
But in itself it doesn't seem like a sexualized image. Some might see it differently, but that probably tells you more about them than, say, the Hipgnosis design team who came up with it.
Its not as if we're talking about out something obviously out of order, like Maus. That comic book has naked mice in it! Disgraceful! Clearly that kind of thing shouldn't be allowed.
-sean
There’s an interview with a couple of the kids here:
https://www.guitarworld.com/news/see-houses-holy-album-cover-child-models-39-years-later
DW
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